Optimising for YouTube

We recently found a fantastic resource on YouTube to help people and brands ensure that their videos reach the widest possible audience.  And we just had to share it with you.

The useful content provides a comprehensive overview on YouTube video optimisation and discusses the importance of meta data and thumbnail optimisation.  The resource also provides additional advice on adding annotations, channel optimisation, how to maintain the channel feed and using YouTube analytics.

We are really impressed with the content. Hope you are too.  Please visit the YouTube optimisation guide here.

If you don't have time to digest the content straight away, but wish to launch/host videos onto a channel such as YouTube, then we have shared our "must do lists" for video optimisation below:

Video SEO Optimisation

• Add meta data information while uploading - title and description for your videos.
• Add links to your website
• Create a video sitemap and upload the video sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools

Video Sitemap Requirements (Google)

• Title: This should be the same as the title of the page your video appears
• Description: Make this exactly match the meta description of your page
• Play Page URL:  The canonical URL of the page your video appears
• Thumbnail URL: By thumbnail they mean a high resolution image up to 1920x 1080
• Raw video location/URL: This URL is found in the embed src link you find when you go to share a video and click embed.

If you require further assistance with optimising one of your video channels to increase traffic and customer engagement, then please do get in touch.

Author: Aysegul Yigitbasi and Sarah Griffiths

Introduction to Adwords Enhanced Campaigns

Early in February this year, Search Engine Land shared their thoughts on the news of the latest Google Adwords update, titled: 'The Big Adwords Update: Enhanced Campaigns Puts the Focus on Mobile'.

The February 2013 Adwords update has been designed to simplify PPC campaign management across many devices, and seeks to increase the use of mobile advertising. Paid search managers are able to set different bids and show different ads based on a user's device type, location and time of day, all within one campaign.

Google have remained progressive with their Enhanced campaigns and on April 22nd Google let their advertisers know that all enhanced campaigns will now include social annotations when they can improve ad performance, (without additional edits to the campaign).  In order to receive this feature your Google+ page must have a significant number of followers and be linked to the website that matches the URL of your search ads. You can learn more about this particular feature here and the launch of a way for advertisers to reach app users; with 'ads in apps'.

Following the recent advancements, Google reported that since launch of the enhanced campaigns:

"advertisers have already upgraded over 1.5 million campaigns and have shared many success stories"

As enhanced campaigns reduce the overall number of campaigns you need to create (as you no longer need to create separate campaigns for each target devise type or location), this will save time and generate a better return on ad spend (ROAS).

We are welcoming the increased ROAS, the time saving, the more comprehensive reporting, the simplified budgeting and dynamic delivery to show the right ads to the right person at the right time. A great move by Google product teams and a very useful feature. Naturally, some transitional concerns may arise from sites, for example, some e-commerce sites, where mobile doesn't traditionally convert as well as desktop.

Some of the main features of enhanced campaigns include:

• Powerful advertising tools for the multi-devise world: Ability to manage your bids across devises, locations and time. 

• Smarter ads optimised for varying user contexts: Ability to show the right creative, sitelink, app, social annotations (where suitable) or extension based on the context of your prospective customers and the devise they are using.

• Advanced reports to track and measure new conversion types: such as Phone Calls over 60 Seconds Counted as Conversions, digital downloads, and conversions across devises.

Benefits to Businesses

To help explain further about how your business can benefit from Google AdWords enhanced campaigns, the Adwords blog post on the February 2013 update, gave the below three examples:

"A breakfast cafe wants to reach people nearby searching for "coffee" or "breakfast" on a smartphone. Using bid adjustments, with three simple entries, they can bid 25% higher for people searching a half-mile away, 20% lower for searches after 11am, and 50% higher for searches on smartphones. These bid adjustments can apply to all ads and all keywords in one single campaign"

"A national retailer with both physical locations and a website can show ads with click-to-call and location extensions for people searching on their smartphones, while showing an ad for their e-commerce website to people searching on a PC — all within a single campaign"

"You can count phone calls of 60 seconds or longer that result from a click-to-call ad as a conversion in your AdWords reports, and compare them to other conversions like leads, sales and downloads"

Learn more about enhanced campaigns

To understand more about how you can reach customers, at the moments that matter, across devises with more relevant ads, please visit the Google Enhanced Campaign landing page or watch the above video.

Google plans to update all Adwords PPC campaigns to enhanced by June, this year.

Should you have any further queries on launching paid search campaigns, please do get in touch and contact our sales team to discuss your requirements further.

Author: Fiona Anderson and Sarah Griffiths

Geek Video of the Month

Our Geek Video of the month was sourced from the Bit Rebels' blog (top blog for Geek News, Tips and Trends) who profiled the JWT Intelligence 'Our 10 trends for 2013 in 2 minutes' video, which researched lifestyle trends for 2013. Read the Bit Rebels take on the video here.

The video is only 2 minutes long and features some great content on the lifestyle of 'digital natives'; a lifestyle we may all soon be living.  The purpose of the video is to profile the JWT Intelligence's 171 page corresponding report, which is available to purchase.

Find out more about JWT Intelligence, the New York based HQ, Marketing Communications brand and their methodology for retrieving all the data over at their website.

The research is relevant to a UK audience, as the survey included 519 Americans and 497 from the UK.

We are especially interested in this video as several of the featured trends for 2013 link with the work we are conducting for our clients; such as database developments, personalisation, connectivity from objects to brands and peer power / social media strategies.

The 10 Trends for 2013 include: 

1. Play as a competitive advantage
2. The Super Stress Era
3. Intelligent Objects
4. Predictive Personalisation
5. The Mobile Fingerprint
6. Sensory Explosion
7. Everything is Retail
8. Peer Power
9. Going Private in Public
10. Health and Happiness Hand in Hand.

If we can help you get ready for the 2013 online digital lifestyle trends, then we would love to talk to you further. Call our Sales team on 01202 678777 or visit our contact us page.

We hope you all enjoy your Sensory Explosion this year and here's wishing you a happy on the move shopping trip.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Acquiring Fans on Facebook

Research from Efficient Frontier (Jan 2012) found that on average, brands are acquiring fans at a rate of 9% per month.

Are your fans/likes growing at this pace?

If you regularly post updates but get little feedback from fans, it may be because you are talking rather than conversing. Because, people don't go out and "like" random pages for businesses that they haven't already used, or plan to use.

Customer Engagement is key

Facebook isn't just about broadcasting your news; it's about customer engagement and via the sharing of interesting content, enhancing your brand awareness to the friends of your Facebook page fans.  The above image is from the Mothercare UK Facebook page, who regularly post 'Facebook Exclusive' offers, giving their customers a reason to 'like' them and stick around.

To increase engagement on your own business Fan page, consider who your customers are and how your customers want to engage on Facebook (i.e. helping shape the brand, contests, visual experience, events and incentives for sharing).  Secondly, consider what they search for on Facebook, where else are they active, take a look at the other related pages where your target market are regularly commenting, what is a hot topic?

Who are your customers?

Along with viewing popular conversations/engagement, questioning what your fans want from your page and considering who your fans are/will be, will help you develop engaging content.

For example, for hotels, guests' needs will differ from those interested in family breaks to business trips; fun breaks to activity bases; somewhere quiet to a lively restaurant; local attractions to events at the hotel.

Use Facebook to seek out and engage with local news stories and regular events where there may be a potential for a tie-in with your page. For example, hotels could offer group rates to an event or conference organiser and invite the organiser to tag the hotel page when mentioning the discount for the event to attendees/delegates.

Goals and expectations

When tasked with the objective to 'enhance your Facebook page acquisition rate', two good places to start are establishing goals for your Facebook page and considering why your target audience would like your page / what are they expecting?

As a means of example, we have listed below ten goals for a Hotel Facebook page and ten reasons why a fan may want to join a Hotel Facebook page.

Ten goals for a Hotel Facebook page

1. Extend marketing campaigns
2. Community engagement (attract fans of your friends) / be a story teller.
3. Generate extra web traffic
4. Boost brand awareness and increase brand loyalty
5. Support customers and receive instant feedback
6. Increase bookings to accommodation
7. Increase bookings to events
8. Increase bookings to conference and meeting rooms
9. Keep up with the competition
10. Obtain further insight into customer base (using Facebook insights)

Ten expectations / reasons why a customer may 'like' a Hotel Facebook page

1. They are passionate about their location (images)
2. They let me know about events happening in the area
3. They like to share with me the special Facebook promotions
4. They inspire me to get creative in the kitchen
5. They are eager to know how the hotel can make our stay even more comfortable
6. Should I post a recommendation on the page, my Facebook friends will see this
7. They keep me up to date on those who supply the hotel
8. They are helpful and generally care that I have had a pleasant stay
9. They share their latest reviews from customers and citation websites (i.e. Trip Advisor)
10. They make me feel part of their story

We hope you can relate these goals and reasons to your own business and that it will enable you to think more strategically about growing your Facebook page popularity.

Should you require assistance for social media strategy and growth, please visit our Social Media Strategy page or contact our Sales team today to discuss your requirements.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Geek Video of the Month

Jack (year 10 student) joined Rocktime last week on a two week work experience placement. He has mostly been working with the web developers as this is a career he is considering pursuing.

Rocktime's Search Marketing team tasked Jack with a quest to find this month's 'Geek Video of the Month'. Jack had to source three potential Geek videos and one would be chosen for this month's Geek Video of the Month. And here it is!

We are pleased to announce that Jack has been very successful. He interpreted the brief well, did some good research and was able to provide creative ideas. Jack's choice of Geek video is certainly worthy of being voted 'Geek Video of the Month'. It is truly awesome!

The Geek video was created by Microsoft in 2011 titled, "Productivity Future Vision" it has been very popular with over 4m views. The video looks at what technology will be like in 5 to 10 years time, focusing on how people will get things done at work, home and on the go. The video is six minutes long, but well worth the watch. Our favourite part is the on the go interactive smart phone booking of a charity concert.

As with all visionary projections it can stir up controversial comments but we think it is a good way to demonstrate how so many of the science and technology features in the video are already coming to life just 2 years later.

To find out more about the video we found a related article over at Computer World, titled:
"Why Microsoft's vision of the future will really happen".

Other videos sourced by Jack include:

A very recent (3 weeks) ago news of a Transparent Mobile Phone prototype developed in Taiwan and a trailer of the World's first and only 3D drawing pen the '3Doodler'. The video outlines how the 3D drawing technology works and sectors that may be interested in using the tool.

Potentially Jack may win Geek video of the month for April too.

Thanks so much Jack for providing such great content, it has been great working with you. If you continue with the blog you created, please do let us know about it over on Twitter @RocktimeSocial.

Author: Sarah Griffiths & Jack Williams

Geek Video of the Month

As we like to give focus on the blog to rising trends, this month's Geek Video of the Month, comes via the Hybris Software YouTube channel, titled "Shopping Gets Sexy with Hybris" the video includes technology such as in-store NFC tags, gesture-based product navigation and geo-fenced alerts.  The video highlights that "window-shopping" need not be a low margin activity and shows how window shoppers can socially engage with a product, even when the shop is closed.

For more information on NFC tags, read our latest blog titled is; NFC the next big thing?

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Is NFC the next big thing

NFC stands for “Near Field Communication”,  it is a set of standards for (NFC enabled) smart-phones and similar devices to establish radio communication with each other by touching them together or bringing them into close proximity.   It is known in the mobile market, predominantly for mobile payments. 

NFC technology is not new and the first NFC enabled phone was released back in 2006, since 2011 we are seeing more and more reports on the opportunities available of using NFC in marketing campaigns.  

The above image is from a 2011 campaign run via Nokia with Proxama (NFC and Mobile Commerce Specialist) in Vox Cinemas.  Details of the campaigns were widely reported; The Drum online magazine covered the campaign here.  We feel that this ‘mobile content delivery’ is less clunky than the traditional QR Codes for engaging with offline information. How Stuff Works: What is an NFC Tag?

Mid January our favourite Internet Marketing Blog Econsultancy, reported five trends from CES that marketers need to know.  Guess what? NFC made the list. 

This month’s geek video comes via the Hybris Software channel, titled: Shopping Gets Sexy with Hybris” the video includes technology such as in-store NFC tags, gesture-based product navigation and geo-fenced alerts.  The video highlights that "window-shopping" need not be a low margin activity and shows how window shoppers can socially engage with a product, even when the shop is closed. We love this approach. We are watching trends in NFC Smartphone adoption with interest and noting those using the technology within their digital marketing strategies.  

Mobile/Social Marketing is becoming a lot less about broadcasting information in a more succinct way, it is moving more towards engaging customers in digital experiences with your information. 

NFC allows the tech savvy consumers to engage, interact and communicate with brands. We will keep you up to date with others using NFC on this blog.  Should you wish to help your company stay ahead of the digital, mobile and social news, talk to our sales team today about our Integrated Marketing Services. 

Author: Sarah Griffiths